Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Jake Bullett, part two

A while ago I compared being a manager with being a traffic light. The analogy remains valid, a good traffic light should help you to go where you need to go with minimal disruption.

But I do not like traffic lights. To be more precise, I do not like the fascist implementation of traffic lights currently prevalent in the UK.Except at peak time, they slow traffic and cause congestion, they do not relieve it. If you come to a junction and there is no-one there, why shouldn't you cross it? If you wait, traffic just stacks up behind you.I hope this blog is never only a complaint, there should always be a positive suggestion. Every light-regulated junction should be more like the flashing yellows in the US - of course you must be careful, at some points you may have priority, at others you may need to pause briefly to enforce a look around. But if there is no-one crossing, then surely it is better to move on rather than let traffic stack up behind you.

It's hard to be objective about this. My wife got a hefty fine and a quarter of her driving license was removed because she did not wait unnecessarily at an empty crossing. A few months later, perhaps overconcerned about this, she braked hard at another traffic light where it would have safe to continue, and a heavy 4x4 ploughed into the back of her. Unfair? Dangerous? Criminal?